


Any Given Dream

by Pun



Category: A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:32:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pun/pseuds/Pun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A father pleads, a son cannot be swayed.<br/>A brother's love makes way for love forbade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Given Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acchikocchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchikocchi/gifts).



> A million thanks to ThirdBird and Rhiannonhero for betaing and moral support. All remaining mistakes are mine alone.

It was a morning like most at Baitar House. The Nawab Sahib and Firoz were at the breakfast table together by happenstance rather than by design, each abstracted in his own thoughts. Any additional arrivals at the breakfast table were unlikely. Imtiaz was either already out seeing a patient or had never returned from the hospital the night before, neither his father nor his brother was sure which, and although Maan Kapoor had arrived at the house the evening before and would be staying through Dussehra, he was not commonly awake at this hour of the morning.

When Firoz was two-thirds of the way through his omelet, his father cleared his throat and said, “I have had a letter from Khanum Sahib. He will be in Brahmpur at the end of the month and hopes to meet us again while he’s here.”

Muhammad Khanum was a zamindar from outside of Lucknow whose holdings were never as vast or as grand as those of Baitar, but he had used his wealth to open a factory making radios and film projectors and was now one of the richest men in Uttar Pradesh. Firoz had thought their first meeting two months earlier had been a purely social one, and he had agreed to his father’s request that he join them for dinner mainly because Ishaq Khan, the famous disciple of Ustad Majeed Khan, was to sing afterward. He had been quite irritated when he discovered that the object of the meal was not to exchange gossip and tips on the best breeders of polo ponies, but to discuss his and Khanum’s daughter’s marital prospects.

“I have the Munda case expected to go to trial, and a number of other briefs due at the end of this month,” hedged Firoz. He had no taste for this conversation. With Maan’s arrival the night before after a long period in Benares all of the complications that a wife would bring were fresh in his mind. Keeping his eyes resolutely on his plate, he cut into his omelette and took a bite.

“Firoz,” the Nawab said. There was a sharpness in his voice that Firoz had not heard in many years.

Startled, he looked up into his father’s eyes. “Yes, Abba?” he said.

“I expect you to consider this seriously. Zainab has met Saamiya and believes her to be a good and sensible girl. She does not keep purdah. You could even meet her yourself.”

Firoz gave a non-commital shrug.

“How much longer must I wait to see you settled? Inshallah, I would like to see the grandson who will carry on our name before my death. Will you deny me this pleasure?”

Firoz looked away from his father’s wistful expression. The past several years he had seemed more and more abstracted, seldom leaving his library or even reading a newspaper. Firoz had not fully realized the depth of his father’s desire for him to marry until this moment.

“Why not Imtiaz? He is the elder. It would be wrong for me to usurp his primogeniture,” said Firoz.

His father dismissed this weak attempt at humor with a shake of his head. “We are not speaking of Imtiaz. I will speak to him as well, but a lawyer has more time for family life than a doctor.” Trying a different tack, the Nawab said, “You said you liked Athar when you were at Saint Sebastian’s together.”

The youngest of the three Khanum sons, Athar, had attended the same boarding school as Firoz and Imtiaz, but he had been a year behind them, so their only real contact had been on the school cricket team. “I barely knew him outside the pitch,” objected Firoz. “By that logic I should have married Veena.” His father frowned at the idea of his son marrying a Hindu, even one he was as fond of as the sweet and lively Veena. His father’s unhappy expression, and perhaps the realization that he had cut a bit too close to the truth, caused an uneasy guilt to settle around Firoz’s heart, and in the end he agreed to the meeting with Khanum despite his better judgment.  


*

That evening, Maan made an oblique and bitter reference to Firoz’s eligibility as a handsome Nawabzada, and, after some coaxing, admitted to having overheard Firoz’s conversation about marriage with his father.

Although Maan had regained most of his light and easygoing manner in the years that had passed since what they now referred to as“the accident,” on the rare occasions they were forced to acknowledge it, he did not shrug off adversity or disappointment as easily as he did before and was prone to periods of melancholy and brooding.

“I will not even know your wife. She will keep purdah, and live in the zenana. You will have all the responsibilities of a family man to attend to, and then what will become of me?” asked Maan morosely.

“I always thought you would want to marry some day,” said Firoz.

Maan scoffed. “I am hardly the type of son-in-law respectable khatri parents are looking for.”

This was not entirely true. Mahesh Kapoor had won back his old seat in the elections earlier that year and was expected to be appointed to the cabinet when he took office, most likely back in his old post as revenue minister. A father with a powerful place in government could make up for a scandal, particularly if the girl was not particularly fair, or rich, or if it were a second marriage.

Firoz suggested as much, but Maan waved the idea aside with a flick of his fingers. Firoz thought it best not to pursue a topic that was clearly causing Maan so much pain.

There was a certain way to calm Maan down, Firoz knew, and he employed it now, drawing Maan to him and kissing him on the mouth. Maan sighed into the kiss and went pliant as Firoz very slowly, very firmly stroked a hand down his torso from collarbone to pelvis.

Maan grew heavy in Firoz’s arms, and they lay down on the bed. Maan’s breathing quickened as Firoz continued to stroke and kiss him as they undressed. Once they were both nude, Firoz took Maan’s hard cock into his mouth.

Maan cried out, making small, aborted thrusts up into Firoz’s mouth. Firoz held on tightly to Maan’s hips and sucked hard as he worked his tongue and his lips up and down Maan’s shaft until Maan’s moans of pleasure took on a higher, more desperate pitch and his mouth was filled with the salty, bitter fluid of Maan’s release.

Firoz lay down alongside Maan, enflamed, as he always was, by the sight and sound and taste of Maan, and the way that he gave himself completely over to this reckless pleasure.

Maan took Firoz in hand and stroked him until Firoz’s blood turned molten and his whole body felt strung tight as a bow, about to be released into that moment of pure pleasure when his world was reduced to the feel and the scent of Maan, and the uncontrollable pulsing of his own body. His cries were stifled by the press of Maan’s lips against his.

Slowly the outer world came back to Firoz. The sun had set while they were making love and the room had grown dark. There was the skittering sound of a monkey running across the roof. Firoz was resting his sweaty forehead against Maan’s temple and had one arm across Maan’s chest.

“Would it have to change?” he asked quietly.

“Of course it would,” Maan answered him. “Perhaps it should.” A copy of a family portrait taken when Firoz and Imtiaz were small was on his bedside table. Maan sat up and gestured to it. “Would you deny yourself this? Deny your father his dream?”

A second photograph was beside it, taken at Varun Mehra’s wedding two years previously: Maan and Firoz with their arms about each other’s shoulders, laughing at something one of them had said. Firoz’s head was tilted as in the photograph of him as a child, but in this one he was looking into Maan’s eyes rather than at the camera.

“Any given dream precludes another,” said Firoz, looking at this picture of himself and Maan, alone and perfectly content.

*  
Firoz showed up unannounced at Imtiaz’s office at the hospital one chilly afternoon in late December.

“This is unexpected,” said Imtiaz, rising slightly from his chair. “Are you unwell? Is Abba?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Firoz said, but he was anxious, and he knew that his unease was plain to Imtiaz. Firoz wanted to reassure him, but he found it difficult to speak, and looked at his hands instead for several moments.

“I need to talk to you,” Firoz said finally.

“Well, all right. Go on, then. You’re really making me nervous.”

“Imtiaz. I need you to get married.”

Imtiaz laughed with relief. “Is that all? Did Abba put you up to this? I’m still getting my practice established. It takes longer for a doctor than a lawyer. In a few years, maybe.”

“No, Imtiaz, listen. We’re going— Maan’s business is expanding. He has the opportunity to be an exporter; he’ll be opening a shop in London in three months' time.”

A painful silence followed this pronouncement. Imtiaz seemed to hold back several possible responses.

“Please, Imtiaz,” said Firoz when it became plain his brother was not going to speak. He could feel blood rushing to his cheeks, and his heart beginning to beat faster.  


“What will Abba say?”

“He will be thrilled. With a wedding to plan he might even leave his study on occasion,” Firoz said, deliberately misunderstanding the question.  


“What will Abba say about the move to London?”

“I don’t know. I’ve already spoken to the Bannerjis about a post in their London office. They have plenty of work.”

“There will still be marriage proposals in London,” said Imtiaz.

He was studying Firoz’s face intently, with a stern expression he normally only used on his patients. Firoz felt truly separate from his brother for the first time in his life. The feeling made him miserable, but he saw no way of bridging the gap.

Firoz sighed. “Imtiaz,” he said, “I will never marry.”

Imtiaz looked out the window. His office overlooked the hospital's inner courtyard where a Harsingar tree was still blooming.

At last Imtiaz swallowed and looked back at Firoz. “Very well,” he said. “I know that Abba has been to see Muhammad Khanum about his daughter. I will tell him that I am willing to offer her a proposal. I’ll tell him tonight.”

Firoz had to close his eyes. He felt as if he might shed tears if he looked at his brother’s face. “Thank you, Imtiaz.”  
Another long silence followed.

“Do you think, Firoz, that you will be happy in London?”

“Yes,” said Firoz. He met his brother’s eyes again, and felt renewed by the warmth and caring that he saw there. “Yes.”


End file.
